A VOLUNTEER has vowed to keep spreading love in the community after a toy box was left broken by heartless vandals.

Crafted with love in the Harwich community, children and adults alike had rallied to create a series of toy boxes where visitors could leave their unwanted plastic toys - such as buckets and spades - to save them being abandoned on the coastline.

They could then be used by other visiting families.

But Libby Scarfe, who runs coastal awareness group Seaside Explorers, got a call saying the fruits of her labour had been destroyed just a matter of days after it had been put into place.

Mrs Scarfe, 46, said: “I had been going on about this idea for a year to my husband. We had been really busy and never managed to get it done.

“When I saw they had done it in Clacton I pretty much thrusted my phone into my husband’s face and said ‘Look!’.

“I wanted to do this with the teenagers I work with at the rugby club in the Holiday Hunger Project so perhaps they could take ownership of it and if they saw anyone doing anything nefarious with the boxes they could ask them to have a rethink.

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“These teenagers screwed the boxes, nailed them together, painted them and then we installed them.

“People in the community donated paint and toys, everyone came together to help.

“That’s why it’s such a shame now. You get an awful lot of negativity before you do something good in a town, people are really quick to say it won’t work.

“I’m so disappointed and sad that these people have now been proven right.

“If everyone thought like this then we’d never have anything good. Yes, one bad thing has happened but it certainly won’t stop me.

“You have to spread a message of love and community spirit.

“There are more people out there who value this kind of work than the handful who want to do wrong.

“I’ll keep on going.”